Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. On March 4-6, AIPAC will hold its annual policy conference in Washington, D.C. The speakers include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, and a host of other powerful politicians.

AIPAC has tremendous clout, but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. Here are 10 reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC — like the Israeli government — is demanding that the United States attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn’t trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran’s oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot-high concrete “separation barrier” running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes it impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

3. AIPAC’s call for unconditional support for the Israeli government threatens our national security. The United States’ one-sided support of Israel, demanded by AIPAC, has significantly increased anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East, thus endangering our troops and sowing the seeds of more possible terrorist attacks against us. Gen. David Petraeus on March 16, 2010, admitted that the Israel-Palestine conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel.” He also said that “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

4. AIPAC undermines American support for democracy movements in the Arab world. AIPAC looks at the entire Arab world through the lens of Israeli government interests, not the democratic aspirations of the Arab people. It has therefore supported corrupt, repressive regimes that are friendly to the Israeli government, such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Events now unfolding in the Middle East should convince U.S. policymakers of the need to break from AIPAC’s grip and instead support democratic forces in the Arab world.

5. AIPAC makes the United States a pariah at the U.N. AIPAC describes the U.N. as a body hostile to the State of Israel and has pressured the U.S. government to oppose resolutions calling Israel to account. Since 1972, the United States has vetoed 44 U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. President Obama continues that policy. Under Obama, the United States vetoed U.N. censure of the savage Israeli assault on Gaza in January 2009 in which about 1,400 Palestinians were killed; a 2011 resolution calling for a halt to the illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, even though this was stated U.S. policy; a 2011 resolution calling for Israel to cease obstructing the work of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees; and another resolution calling for an end to illegal Israeli settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights.

6. AIPAC attacks politicians who question unconditional support of Israel. AIPAC demands that Congress to rubber-stamp legislation drafted by AIPAC staff. It keeps a record of how members of Congress vote, and this record is used by donors to make contributions to the politicians who score well. Members of Congress who fail to support AIPAC legislation have been targeted for defeat in re-election bids. These include Sens. Adlai Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy and Representatives Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, and Earl F. Hilliard. AIPAC’s overwhelmingly disproportionate influence on Congress subverts our democratic system.

7. AIPAC attempts to silence all criticism of Israel by labeling critics as “anti-Semitic,” “de-legitimizers,” or “self-hating Jews.” Journalists, think tanks, students, and professors have been accused of anti-Semitism for merely taking stands critical of Israeli government policies. These attacks stifle the critical discussions and debates that are at the heart of democratic policymaking. The recent attack on staffers at the Center for American Progress is but one example of AIPAC efforts to crush all dissent.

8. AIPAC feeds U.S. government officials a distorted view of the Israel-Palestine conflict. AIPAC takes U.S. representatives on sugarcoated trips to Israel. In 2011, AIPAC took one out of every five members of Congress — and many of their spouses — on a free junket to Israel to see precisely what the Israeli government wanted them to see. It is illegal for lobby groups to take Congress members on trips, but AIPAC gets around the law by creating a bogus educational group, AIEF, to “organize” the trips for them. AIEF has the same office address as AIPAC and the same staff. These trips help cement the ties between AIPAC and Congress, furthering its undue influence.

9. AIPAC lobbies for billions of U.S. tax dollars to go to Israel instead of rebuilding America. While our country is reeling from a prolonged financial crisis, AIPAC is pushing for no cuts in military funds for Israel, a wealthy nation. With communities across the nation slashing budgets for teachers, firefighters, and police, AIPAC pushes for over $3 billion a year to Israel.

10. Money to Israel takes funds from world’s poor. Israel has the 24th-largest economy in the world, but thanks to AIPAC, it gets more U.S. tax dollars than any other country. At a time when the foreign aid budget is being slashed, keeping the lion’s share of foreign assistance for Israel means taking funds from critical programs to feed, provide shelter for, and offer emergency assistance to the world’s poorest people.

The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has influence on U.S. policy out of all proportion to the number of Americans who support its policies. When a small group like this has disproportionate power, that hurts everyone — including Israelis and American Jews.

While the rhetoric between Iran and its enemies has reached new heights - with Iran's defense minister reportedly threatening the use of "hidden capabilities which are kept for rainy days" in response to a foreign attack - the diplomatic front is also busier than ever. A great deal of expectation is placed on the meeting between United States President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next Monday, just as a great deal of attention is focused on Israel's preparations to strike the Iranian nuclear program.

Yet while Israel is one of the noisiest participants in the stand-off, it is by far not the only important player to watch. From a long rostrum of powers with heavy stakes (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China immediately come to mind), Russia seems to be driving a particularly hard bargain with the US and its allies. Though not READ MORE

Such a pity that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't make the 2012 Oscars. La Clinton would stand a good chance of upstaging even tweet-exploding Angelina Jolie's right leg - that force of nature now all over the net, landing on the moon and even invading Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. [1]

The Empress of Libya ("We came, we saw, he died") did try hard, including a photo op for the BBC, where she finally admitted that the US is fighting side by side with al-Qaeda to unleash regime change in Syria. [2] READ MORE

National borders from the eastern Mediterranean to the Iranian border were made after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Britain and France, with little consideration for sectarian or ethnic realities, drew lines across the area and established the new countries of Iraq and Syria.

As authoritarian regimes disappear under the weight of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the ongoing uprising in Syria, regional boundaries may be redrawn by indigenous peoples and regional powers. Five new states could emerge: Shi'ite Iraq, Sunni Iraq, Sunni Syria, Greater Kurdistan, and Shi'ite Syria. READ MORE

PALO ALTO, California - With the Iran war hysteria getting louder, United States President Barack Obama, due to address the Jewish lobby on Sunday ahead of his meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week, is facing one of the toughest choices of his presidency: whether to appease the pro-Israeli warmongers or, instead, to use his authority to put a break on the omnibus of another war in the Middle East?

So far, Obama has served Israel well by putting into place harsh sanctions against Iran that fulfill Israel's demand of "crippling sanctions", although the lack of compliance by Iran's Asian energy partners has lessened their impact, and by providing Israel with the necessary military assistance that in turn equips Tel Aviv to launch an aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities in the future (as per Western media reports). READ MORE

AIPAC’s Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny andunprecedented resistance. AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask” Congress and the president to define “nuclear weapons capability” as the threshold for war, essentially demanding an immediate attack. Because Iran presents no military threat to the United States, many Americans wonder exactly where such costly and potentially disastrous policies are formulated. Recently declassified FBI files reveal how Israeli government officials first orchestrated public relations and policies through the U.S. lobby. Counter-espionage investigations of proto-AIPAC’s first coordinating meetings with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of Mossad provide a timely and useful framework for understanding how AIPAC continues to localize and market Israeli government policies in America.

Although AIPAC claims it rose “from a small pro-Israel public affairs boutique in the 1950s,” its true origin can be traced to Oct. 16, 1948. This is the date AIPAC’s founder Isaiah L. Kenen and four others established the Israel Office of Informationunder Israel’s U.N. mission. It was later moved under the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The IOI opened offices in New York City, Washington, and Los Angeles, which became testbeds for working out how Israeli government leaders would promote lobbying initiatives through public relations harnessing the power and financial support of American organizations and supporters. Although the FBI nervously noted IOI founder Kenen had become a member of the Communist Party in 1937 while working as a newspaperman at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, he was never the subject of a criminal investigation. Only because Kenen interacted with so many U.S. and foreign nationals who were targets of espionage, foreign counter-intelligence, and domestic security investigations (such as super-lobbyist Abraham Feinberg, Israeli diplomats, and assorted Mossad officers) did Kenen’s movements appear as cross-references in hundreds of pages of recently declassified FBI documents [.pdf]. READ MORE

Any Israeli plane approaching Iranian air space should be immediately shot down by America. No questions asked.Israel is the rogue state in the region. It is a clear and present danger to the region and the world.

Israeli defense officials on Sunday confirmed $1.6 billion in deals to sell drones as well as anti-aircraft and missile defense systems to Azerbaijan, bringing sophisticated Israeli technology to the doorstep of archenemy Iran.

It is possible that this patolli ("game" in Nahuatl) was used 600-900 AD, in the Late Classic period, when Dzibilnocac city which is located in the central part of Chenes region, had its heyday [Credit: Herbert Ortega/INAH]

At a time when one in two young Greeks is unemployed, when 25,000 homeless people wonder the streets of Athens, when 30% of the population has fallen below the poverty line, when thousands of families are forced to give up their children to save them from dying of hunger and cold, when refugees and the newly impoverished fight over bins in public dumps, the “rescuers” of Greece, under the pretext that Greeks “aren’t doing enough”, are imposing a new aid package that doubles the administered lethal dose. This is a package that abolishes the right to work and reduces the poor to extreme poverty, while making the middle class disappear. READ MORE

All the buzz over possible war with Iraq brings us a déjà vu feeling, given that U.S. officials prepared Americans with similar pre-war hype in the run up to their war on Iraq. WMDs. Mushroom clouds over American cities. An insane dictator. Threats to national security. Etcetera.

Keep in mind that Iran, like Iraq, has never attacked the United States. If President Obama gives his military and his CIA orders to attack Iran, the United States will once again be the aggressor nation, as it was in its war on Iraq. READ MORE

Wars are fought because some people decide it is in their interests to fight them. World War I was not started over the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination, nor was it triggered by the alliance system. An “incident” may set the stage for war, but no one keeps shooting unless they think it’s a good idea. The Great War started because the countries involved decided they would profit by it, delusional as that conclusion was.

It is useful to keep this idea in mind when trying to figure out if there will be a war with Iran. In short, what are the interests of the protagonists, and are they important enough for those nations to take the fateful step into the chaos of battle?

First off, because oil and gas are involved, a war would have global ramifications.Iran supplies China with about 15 percent of its oil, and India with 10 percent. It is a major supplier to Europe, Turkey, Japan, and South Korea, and it has the third-largest oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world. Some 17 million barrels per day pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a significant part of the globe’s energy supply.

David Makovsky writes in Foreign Policy that “Iranian leaders have struck an increasingly aggressive note. They have threatened a preemptive strike against their foes….” This is shameful. Makovsky knows perfectly well that any sensible reader would interpret “preemptive strike” to mean a military attack, but uses the phrase anyway, even though he knows the implication is false. He links to a New York Times article containing the lead (emphasis added):

Besieged by international sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program including a planned oil embargo by Europe, Iran warned six European buyers on Wednesday that it might strike first by immediately cutting them off from Iranian oil.

But, of course, any reader who didn’t happen to follow his link (and the only reason I did was because I knew the implication that Iran had threatened a military first strike was bullshit) would come away thinking that Iran has belligerently threatened a military act of aggression—which, given his choice of words and lack of context, must be precisely the conclusion Makovsky intended his readers to draw. READ MORE

BERLIN – Germany’s position in Europe looks increasingly peculiar and vulnerable. In the chaos of German unification in 1990, when Germany’s neighbors were terrified of the new giant, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised a European Germany, not a German Europe. Today, however, the terms of any European rescue effort are obviously set by Germany.

There is widespread recognition that Europe needs substantial economic growth if it is to emerge from its debt woes. But German concerns about stability – founded on its catastrophic interwar experience – push in the opposite direction. As a consequence, Germany-bashing is now in fashion.

Germany’s critics make two points: the real European problem is the German current-account surplus, and Germans are perversely obsessed with their past. READ MORE

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